To mark International Women’s Day, the Star aked eight successful women to tell us their female role models.

In honour of International Women’s Day, the Star asked eight high-achieving Canadian females the same question: Is there a woman in your life you’d like to thank, someone who helped you along the way?

After all, March 8th{+ }is the day on which we celebrate the range of women’s accomplishments and to continue to inspire change. On the first International Women’s Day in 1911, women rallied for the end of discrimination and for legal entitlements — including the right to vote, work and hold public office — that Western women today take for granted.

Each generation builds on the triumphs, large and small, of the women who went before. As a show of gratitude, the Star offered to send roses to the women being recognized who are still alive. But the women we polled needed little enticement. They spoke or wrote passionately about their mothers, mentors, teachers and idols, the ones who paved their path.

All of which goes to prove, behind every successful woman there is likely another woman.

Meg Tilly

Actress Meg Tilly was 20 when she met Peggy Feury, the acting teacher she credits with changing her life. Tilly had a small part in a play with Sean Penn, who was a student of Feury. After seeing the play, the teacher told Penn that Tilly could study with her. “That was huge,” says Tilly. “She had a several years’ waiting list.”

Feury taught her not only about acting but about life, about why people do the things they do, says Tilly, who is nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for her role as Lorna Corbett in TV’s Bomb Girls. “Every time I finished a movie, I’d go back and study more, gobble up what I could.”

She remembers Feury always wore pearls. “All us Peggy wannabes, as soon as we could afford it, we’d get ourselves a strand of pearls.”

It was Feury who told her she was a writer. “I thought she was mistaken.” But six years later Tilly began to write. She is the author of five books.

In 1985, Feury was killed in a road accident. “I was devastated. I wish I had told her how much she meant to me.”

In the years that followed, Feury would come to her in dreams to give advice. “Maybe it was inner wisdom, but it sure felt like Peggy.”

“She was intrepid enough to take her two small children, later three, into the woods where travel was by boat ... and there were also no communication devices,” writes Atwood in an email. “Self-sufficiency was encouraged, whining was forbidden, edged tools could be played with. Risk management was instilled early. Her love of life was impressive, and she was a wicked storyteller.”

Dr Janet Rossant

When Dr. Janet Rossant, the chief of research at the Hospital for Sick Children, trained as a developmental biologist in Britain in the early 1970s, she made a remarkable discovery: She met scientist Anne McLaren.

McLaren headed one of the first specialized research labs in early embryonic development at a time when few women held leadership roles, explains Rossant, a stem-cell scientist. As a mentor, McLaren taught Rossant three things that she continues to follow: Always do good science, always find time to talk to anyone who visits the lab (“You’re here to help the next generation,” explains Rossant) and engage in public policy and the ethical issues around your science.

McLaren was also an amazing mother, adds Rossant. “Her family was incredibly important. She had balance in her life.” She enjoyed politics, music and travel. “She’s the only person I know who never suffered from jet lag, who could get off a plane and go dancing.”

In 2007, McLaren, age 80, died in a car crash. “At the time, she was still very active in research and public policy,” says Rossant.

“I feel I owe her.”

Sook-Yin Lee

For years, broadcaster, actress and filmmaker Sook-Yin Lee has greatly admired the work of Alanis Obomsawin, a documentarian of First Nations issues.

“She makes incredible documentaries, stories of struggles and victories. She’s an amazing woman, a longtime activist who pulls no punches,” enthuses Lee. “She’s like a living legend to me.”

That admiration had been from afar. Until last week. At an awards dinner, Lee was seated next to her hero. “There she was in a black plunging neckline looking fabulous,” says Lee. “She’s 81-years-old and continues to knock it out of the park.”

Obomsawin’s newest film is Hi-ho Mistahey! about an Attawapiskat youth’s campaign for quality culture-based education for First Nations children.

Lee and Obomsawin talked about their work, exchanged addresses and hugs. “To meet someone you long admired and find them so human, soft but strong, so unflappable, is something special. I can only hope to be like that at 81.”

Kathleen Wynne

Premier Kathleen Wynne thanks Bonnie Parkhill, her track coach at Richmond Hill High School in the 1960s.

“Back then, we were still using language like ‘women’s liberation,’ and Bonnie was just quietly encouraging all the time: She never lost her cool and was incredibly fair, and really believed in us, and that made a huge difference,” says Wynne in an email. “She also chose me to go to the Ontario Athletic Leadership Camp in Orillia when I was in Grade 11. I’d never had anyone say explicitly that I had leadership potential, and the experience of being chosen and then the leadership camp itself made me see myself differently. Bonnie is a big reason that I have the confidence to do the things I have done, and she’s been a touchstone all my life.”

Dara Howell

At Sochi, Dara Howell won the first Olympic gold medal in slopestyle skiing — and she thanks her mother, Dee, for that. While both her parents have been big supporters, it was her mother who did a lot of the grunt work, driving long distances during her years as a figure skater and then as a skier, she says. “She always said, ‘Dara, whatever you put your mind to, you can do it. As long as you love what you do, you will succeed.’ ”

Kim Lamarre

Kim Lamarre captured bronze in the same event at Sochi, and credits her grandmother, Ginette Seguin, an alpine skier in the 1956 Olympics. As a child, Lamarre walked around the house in her grandmother’s Olympic outfit pretending to be at the Games. But most importantly in recent years, Sequin not only physically cared for Lamarre as she recovered from knee injuries, but also kept her spirits buoyed. “She made a hard time brighter,” says Lamarre. “She’s been giving me positive energy ever since I was little.”

“Mary has an inner strength. She’s a really classy lady. She’d never break down like this,” laughs the opera singer.

She started working with Morrison when she was 18 and a student at the University of Toronto. “She’s been my barometer for quality and work ethic ever since.”

While some voice teachers can be possessive, Morrison always encouraged her to expand, to try other teachers, other methods. Brueggergosman would do that and then return to share knowledge with Morrison.

“She’s like a great parent who rears a child to eventually leave,” explains the singer. “I’ve left, but I keep coming back.”

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